Anti-theocracy

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692551

Tuesday night in Phoenix, Donald Trump put what really should be the final nail in the coffin of the beltway punditry's quaint belief that anytime the man reads off a teleprompter without foaming at the mouth that he's finally at the pivot, that he's becoming presidential. Case in point: the man threatened to shut down his own government if he doesn't get his border wall.

So, yeah. That's not normal. Neither is the prolonged rant he spewed against the two Republican senators from his host state, one of whom just happens to be undergoing treatment for brain cancer at the moment. His rant on Sen. John McCain—the "one vote" that stood in his way on Obamacare repeal—segued into a full-on attack on the Senate that won't just give him everything he wants.

Intentional or not, the renewed call was a barb at McConnell, who has repeatedly said the Senate GOP has no appetite for scrapping the filibuster.

"For our friends in the Senate, oh boy. The Senate, we have to get rid of what's called the filibuster rule,” Trump said. “If we don't the Republicans will never get anything passed. Eight Democrats are controlling all of this legislation."

Oh, Politico. You think it wasn't intentional? You think Trump wasn't ratcheting up his feud with McConnell? This is going to continue as long as he doesn't get his way. He's promising it.

If Republican Senate doesn't get rid of the Filibuster Rule & go to a simple majority, which the Dems would do, they are just wasting time!

After Tuesday night’s performance—highlighted by his attack on McCain—that’s not going to happen. 

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692551

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692529

James Clapper, the former director of National Intelligence, gave an extraordinary interview to CNN’s Don Lemon after Donald Trump’s unhinged rally in Phoenix, Arizona on Tuesday night. In the plainest of terms, Clapper loudly questioned not only Trump’s fitness for office, but his motivation for being there.  

From CNN:

Clapper also called Trump’s unimpeded access to the nuclear codes, ‘pretty damn scary.’ 

How long does this country have to endure this nightmare? It has to be crystal clear to all, even Republican leadership, that this is not sustainable for another 3 ½ years. We are only 7 months into this nightmare! 

See the full, sobering interview below.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692529

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692527

On Tuesday evening, Donald Trump conducted a raucous, racist, hate-filled rally in which he played all his old favorites: attacking the media, maligning immigrants, and demeaning even members of his own party who dared cross him. Then he spiced up his usual stew by re-writing what he said about Charlottesville, and going all in on attacking a man fighting a desperate battle with brain cancer.

Trump’s attacks on the media included repeatedly telling the Phoenix crowd that the rally was not being televised. 

It was a statement you could watch … on CNN. Though Trump probably wished that no one was watching, as he proceeded to retell the events surrounding Charlottesville, including the victim—Donald Trump. In Trump’s revised history, he never made his “both sides” statement immediately following the murder of Heather Heyer, never spent a a press Q & A sessions defending white supremacists, but was just picked on by the unfair press. Trump? Trump never made any mistake. “The words were perfect,” he said.

Trump’s very-recent-history revisions were further blurred when he described the people who committed violence at Charlottesville as “thugs” then repeatedly used the same term to describe protesters who showed up at his rallies.  Trump raged on, and on, and on to accomplish what CNN’s Don Lemon refereed to as 

A total eclipse of the facts.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692527

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692242

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…

Headlines You Won’t Read Today

Trump goes 24 hrs without defending white supremacists

Caligraphist runs out of room while listing Paul Ryan's achievements as House Speaker on grain of rice

Eclipse viewers agree: “Meh.”

Republicans more fired up about midterms than Democrats

World better place without Dick Gregory in it

Middle child gets all the attention

Tucker Carlson makes valid point

Taliban frightened of Trump Afghanistan war plan

Big Ben Bongs

Kos finally deletes ErrinF's fucking account

Melania cleans up the internet

Majority of Americans agree: summer going by too slowly

Donald Trump breaks the one-hundred lie barrier

That last one, of course, is totally wacky. Trump has not lied one hundred times since he became president. He’s actually lied a thousand times.

Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692242

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692286

Different and interesting interpretations of where Trump stands with the public.

Matthew Yglesias/Vox:

After embracing orthodox Republicanism on all fronts, what’s the point of Trump?

Almost all of this was always half-baked and some of it was directly contradicted by other aspects of his 2016 campaign. But as of Election Day 2016 it was certainly possible to squint at Trump and see the outlines of an ideological shakeup — a figure who would attempt to represent the interests of the Republican Party’s electoral base of older-skewing, less-educated white people rather than hew strictly to the reanimated corpse of Reaganism like the vast majority of the party’s elected officials.

But with Steve Bannon fired and Breitbart.com left to snipe from the sidelines as Trump embraces a South Asia strategy pushed by Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, and the uniformed military one must ask: What is the point?

Steve Kornacki/MSNBC:

Polls Show Trump Cratering? Not So Fast

As narratives of collapse take shape around Trump’s presidency now, the campaign should at least serve as a cautionary tale. It may look like his base is crumbling — and maybe it is — or maybe we’re living through a new version of what happened last year.

Consider the newest round of NBC polling from the three states that put Trump over the top. In Michigan, his approval rating is 36 percent, and in both Pennsylvania and Wisconsin it’s 33 percent. This looks brutal and it feeds the perception that Trump’s base is abandoning him. But is it different from his standing in these states during the campaign?

Obviously, he wasn’t president then, so there are no job approval ratings for comparison. But we can look at Trump’s personal popularity, and as Ryan Struyk shows, it turns out it’s pretty much the same now as it was last fall.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692286

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692460

You don’t have to be a fan of Don Lemon or CNN to approve of the television host’s assesment of tonight’s white supremacy Trump rally in Phoenix, Arizona.

Lemon: What do you say to that? I’m just going to speak from the heart here. What we have witnessed was a total eclipse of the facts.

Don Lemon could have gotten up and retired right there. But he didn’t and he drove to the hole again and again and dunked the truth ball on Donald’s stupid head over and over again.

Lemon: Someone who came out onto the stage and lied to the American people. And left things out that he said, in an attempt to rewrite history. Especially when it comes to Charlottesville. 

He’s unhinged. It’s embarrassing—and I don’t mean for us in the media because he went after us—but for the country. This is who we elected for the President of the United States. A man who is so petty he has to go after anyone he deems to be his enemy, like an imaginary friend of a six-year-old. His speech was without thought. It was without reason. It was devoid of facts. It was devoid of wisdom. There was no gravitas. There was no sanity there. He was like a child blaming a sibling on something else. He did it, I didn’t do it.

He certainly opened up the race wound from Charlottesville. A man who is clearly wounded by the rational people leaving him in droves, meaning those business people and the people in Washington who are now questioning his fitness for office and whether he is stable. A man backed into a corner by circumstances beyond his control, and beyond his understanding. 

That’s the truth. If you watch that speech as an American, you had to be thinking what in the world is going on? This is the person we elected as the President of the United States? This petty? This small? The person who is supposed to pull the country together? It certainly didn’t happen there.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692460

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692442

Donald Trump held a campaign rally—that's right, a campaign rally—in Phoenix, Arizona tonight. Because it came directly on the heels of Trump being grumpily contained to a teleprompter for yesterday's "Afghanistan plan" speech, it was almost inevitable that he'd compensate by going off the rails.

But an unapologetically fascist hate campaign against our nation’s free press? That was not expected. But what is what Trump delivered, calling out CNN, ABC, and George Stephanopoulos, among others by name while condemning the media gathered to cover him as responsible for the nation’s woes.

He repeatedly insisted to the crowd that the television cameras were being turned off as he spoke, despite that being demonstrably untrue. It was, as extended, furious rant, insane.

He led his rally into extended shouts against the press outlets gathered to report on his speech. Repeatedly.

These are sick people. You know that the I do not understand? You would think -- you would think they would want to make our country great again. In, I honest honestly do not believe they did. I believe they don't. If you want to discover the story of the division in our country, look no further than the fake news and the crooked media.

[...] Those cameras are going off, oh well. Why don't you just pulled them up and take them home? Oh, those cameras are going off. Well. While -- that is one thing, they are very nervous to have this on live television because this cannot happen. [...]

Not only does the media give it a platform to hate groups, but the media turns a blind eye to the gang violence on our streets, the failures of our public schools, the destruction of our wealth and at the hands of the terrible, terrible trade deals made by politicians that should've never been allowed to be politicians.

He is either demonstrably mentally ill, or he is worse. Dear God, Republican Party ... how long are you going to let this madness go on.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692442

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692443

Donald Trump's campaign rally in Phoenix, because that's what the shitshow is, has been off the rails from word one out of the compulsive liar and megalomaniac's would-be totalitarian mouth. He's got an overriding obsession though, and that's the size of his crowd—all his crowds—and how tiny the opposition is. He's got a great, huge crowd he keeps saying, that the fake media—CNN—won't show.

Here's that crowd.

Here's an angle from the opposite side of the room. #TrumpinPhx pic.twitter.com/xg0G34eJ7r

And the protestors? Tiny crowd, tiny. Here's that crowd.

Trump says there are no protesters outside so MSNBC split screens to large crowd of protesters. pic.twitter.com/a0RcdbW1HM

Here’s another. 

Views from the roof of the parking lot across from Phoenix convention center. People packed on every floor. #trumprally protest pic.twitter.com/pHMc1rbAik

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692443

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692307

There will be a lot of revisionist history among Republicans leading up to the 2018 election, but none will be as remarkable as the spin Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) is trying to make out of the mess he created for himself over the Affordable Care Act. Remember Heller's agonizing path to a bad Trumpcare vote? First he was opposed to any repeal of Medicaid expansion, then he was okay with a slow phase-out. Then he was opposed again, and then he was humiliated on national television by Trump and took two really stupid votes to both advance and pass a repeal. But Heller insists he wasn't all over the place, blowing with the political winds in his votes. No, he was doing strategery, he says. He was, he says, actually saving Medicaid. Single-handedly.

“I did exactly what I said I was going to do, and that was to make sure that middle-class families and low-income families had access to health care,” Heller said. “And a lot of them had access through Medicaid and Medicaid expansion and that’s why I did that press conference with the governor (in June) and said I would not support any legislation that took health care away….I made that promise and kept that commitment.” […]

“We threw votes out there to send messages to the leadership,” he said. “I was even criticized for an amendment on the floor that only got 10 votes. The purpose of those 10 votes was to send a message to our leadership that they didn’t have the votes necessary in order to include Medicaid (in the repeal) and we sent the exact message we wanted to. Like I said, I know we were criticized because people don’t understand the process. But the bottom line is, the bottom line is, in the skinny bill, Medicaid expansion, these low-income families had the health care that they need.”

For those of you fellow slack-jawed observers who do not understand the Senate process as well as Heller, perhaps this will help: He is seriously arguing that a non-binding resolution would have prevented the Senate from approving a conference report, which is what the skinny repeal was designed to result in, if it contained Medicaid cuts?

Please give $1 to each of our Senate funds so that Republican senators—particularly Dean Heller—know there's a price to pay for their votes to repeal health care.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692307

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692126

The list of of Donald Trump appointments with closer-than-usual relationships to white supremacists, anti-Semites, and the other dregs of the far right just keeps getting bigger.

It's saying something when being a member of a SPLC-identified hate group isn't enough to immediately disqualify a person, but nope, she manages to ratchet it up another notch.

Her links to the Holocaust-denying right are direct. In her anti-abortion role she edited a 2003 book of essays by fellow anti-abortion activists. One of those essays was by Joe Sobran, who joined her onstage for a promotional event for the book. That Joe Sobran was at the time well known throughout conservatism for his anti-Semitic writings and promotion of Holocaust deniers was, apparently, not a deal breaker for Manning and her "pro-life" audience.

That there are still, in this millennium, people in America obsessed with defending the Nazis is remarkable. It’s also remarkable how Trump's team just happens to keep appointing figures from the far-right with so many of the same marks on their resumes. Go figure, and so on.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692126

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692381

You don't necessarily think "innovation" when you hear "Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee," but they've got a new online ad strategy that is definitely a new thing in political advertising.

This less disruptive format has been deployed by content providers seeking to grab viewer's attention in an age of Snapchat and short attention spans. But a DSCC official says this is the first time this cycle that they or any other committee has utilized the format. Google helped the committee utilize its technology, the official said.

The ad is a simulated text conversation between a child and their mother, starting with kind of a grabby question: "How do I know if I need stitches?" Subsequent texts tell the story of a family that doesn't have insurance and a really expensive emergency room visit, and toss in a picture of whichever Republican senator is being targeted in the ad, with a headline from a local paper talking about the health care vote they just cast.

The ad maybe needs another screen explaining that this isn't the outcome, but rather the Republicans’ ongoing vision. No, they didn't pass repeal and didn't successfully take anyone's insurance away. But they sure as hell want to. Watch the innovative ad below.

Please give $1 to each of our Senate funds so that Republican senators—particularly Dean Heller—know there's a price to pay for their votes to repeal health care.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692381

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692409

As Donald Trump's incomprehensible incompetence continues to dominate the 24-hour news cycle at a stunning clip, New York magazine has a lengthy meditation on the catastrophic damage Ben Carson is doing to public housing as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Bottom line: Not only does Carson have no idea what he's doing, he also doesn't give two licks about keeping our nation's most vulnerable citizens housed. Alec MacGillis writes:

After word emerged in early March that the White House was considering cutting as much as $6 billion from the department, Carson had sent a rare email to HUD employees assuring them that this was just a preliminary figure. But as it turned out, Carson, as a relative political outsider lacking strong connections to the administration, was out of the loop: The final proposal crafted by Trump budget director Mick Mulvaney called for cutting closer to $7 billion, 15 percent of its total budget. Participants in the Section 8 voucher program would need to pay at least 17 percent more of their income toward rent, and there’d likely be a couple hundred thousand fewer vouchers nationwide (and 13,000 fewer in New York City). Capital funding for public housing would be slashed by a whopping 68 percent — this, after years of cuts that, in New York alone, had left public-housing projects with rampant mold, broken elevators, and faulty boilers.

“By the time I left, almost 90 percent of our budget was to help people stay in their homes,” [former Obama Housing Sec.] Shaun Donovan told me. “So when you have a 15 percent cut to that budget, by definition you’re going to be throwing people out of their homes. You’re literally taking vouchers away from families, you’re literally shutting down public housing, because it can’t be maintained anymore.” [...]

But if Carson was troubled by the disembowelment of his department, he showed no sign of it. Even before the final numbers were out, he had assured housing advocates that cuts would be made up for by money dedicated to housing in the big infrastructure bill Trump was promising — a notion that his fellow Republican Kemp, among others, found far-fetched. “I’m not sure he understood how that would work,” Kemp told me. “He was probably repeating what had been told to him.” Then, a day after the budget was released, Carson downplayed the importance of programs for the poor in a radio interview with Armstrong Williams, saying that poverty was largely a “state of mind.” This, more than anything, seemed to be a crystallization of the Carson philosophy of HUD: that privation would be solved by the power of positive thinking, that his own extraordinary rise was scalable and could be replicated millions of times over.

Just another narcissist with a soft spot for portraits of himself ruining a significant part of the nation’s social safety net. If our country survives Trump and his team of well-coiffed ghouls, we'll spend years trying to rebuild the decimated government they leave behind.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692409

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1691478

Support fake comics!!  www.patreon.com/keefknight

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1691478

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692368

In anticipation of Donald Trump's rally in Phoenix, Arizona, Tuesday night, pundits have been relentlessly asking: Which Donald Trump will show up—the aide-scripted teleprompter guy, or the crazy unplugged guy who just can’t help but play one America against another America?

But perhaps the more interesting point isn't so much a matter of how Trump plays when he gets there—it's that he's not even welcome to begin with. Shortly after Trump delivered his repulsive defense of white supremacists and neo-Nazi violence last Tuesday, Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton began publicly urging Trump to postpone tonight's rally, along with a cohort of state lawmakers. They also objected to Trump’s assertion that was he considering pardoning former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted of illegally targeting immigrants during immigration patrols.  

Downtown Phoenix’s congressional representative, Ruben Gallego, was part of a group of three Arizona House Democrats that wrote an open letter to Mr. Trump on Thursday asking him not to pardon Mr. Arpaio, citing the former sheriff’s “brazen abuse of the public trust.”

“He’s basically trying again to feed more meat to the alt-right,” Mr. Gallego said Friday on CNN of Mr. Trump’s visit. “I just don’t think it’s a coincidence.”

The lawmakers’ sentiments are totally understandable in the wake of remarks from Trump last week that, far from soothing the country, only stoked more division and violence.

But their rejection of a visit from a sitting president is also pretty unprecedented. As controversial as President Obama was at certain times in his presidency, it’s hard to recall a single time when a contingent of major political figures asked him to reconsider a visit on account of his presence potentially fostering violence. Protests of any sitting president are common, even expected. But the call from a big-city politician, regardless of party, to the leader of our nation to exhibit the "sound judgment" not to show up is highly unusual territory for us. Even Arizona's Republican governor, who plans to greet Trump at the tarmac, is steering clear of his event.

Naturally, Trump's choice is an abject lesson in poor judgment.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692368

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692291

Since the nation is finally talking about white supremacy after the events in Charlottesville, now is a good time to talk about all the ways that white supremacy is manifested. In order to do that, there are some hard, painful truths that need to accompany this discussion—for example, the fact that it took an extreme demonstration of violence in which a white woman was killed before many in this country started to actually believe that white supremacy wasn’t something that was just a fiction or outdated concept invented by angry people of color.

Another realization that must come with this moment of reckoning is that white supremacy is not just a man’s game. White women have long played a role in maintaining racial superiority in this country, despite protestations to the contrary. Heather Hayer’s death was tragic. She is now one of countless people who have been murdered in the fight against hate. But we need to understand that reactions to her death are complex. A lot of white progressives have been lauding Heather’s death as an example of how white allies are showing up for racial justice. While this is true, it is also true that black and brown death at the hands of white supremacy does not receive the same kind of widespread attention that Heather’s death has received. It is also true that Heather’s death doesn’t erase the history of white women’s participation in white supremacy. This conversation must be met with a both/and approach.

As evidence of the above point, this weekend, two white teenagers visited the campus of Howard University in Washington, DC, wearing Make America Great Again hats. They were not warmly received. And they took to social media to tell their story.

Two teenagers stirred up controversy at Howard University — a historically black college, or HBCU — on Saturday when they arrived at the campus wearing Make America Great Again paraphernalia, drawing a sharp response from the college's students and prompting a Twitter thread from the university.

The high school students said Howard students approached them and criticized their Trump gear as they waited in line at the cafeteria — with one Howard student grabbing their hats and another saying "Fuck y'all." [...]

The two white students, from Union City High School in Pennsylvania, told BuzzFeed News they were among a group of 30 teenagers on an organized trip to see sites in Washington, DC, where the college is based. They arrived at the campus around lunchtime, and headed for the cafeteria with their school chaperones.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692291

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692277

Today’s comic by Jen Sorensen is Finally seeing the (torch) light:

• Missouri stays execution Marcellus Williams tonight until inquiry looks at DNA test showing likely innocence. Williams’ attorneys had appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court for a new hearing or the commutation of his sentence to life in prison. They also asked Republican Gov. Eric Greitens for clemency. Greitens said he would appoint a board to look into the DNA testing and other factors:

Attorney Kent Gipson contends that DNA testing conducted in December using techniques that were not available at the time of the killing showed DNA found on the knife matches an unknown man, but not Williams. He also cited previous DNA testing of hairs found from Gayle’s shirt and fingernails that also excluded Williams, and said footprints at the scene did not match Williams. [...]

Gipson said Williams’ conviction was based on the testimony of two convicted felons who were out for a $10,000 reward. One was Williams’ former girlfriend and the other was his former cellmate.

• China puts floating solar farm above coal mine: The mine was closed and groundwater flooded it. So the city decided to use the space rather than abandon it as a source of electricity. The new solar farm generates 40 megawatts, enough to power about 15,000 homes. That is more than six times the second biggest active floating farm, which has a capacity of 6.3 megawatts. There are several advantages to floating solar farms, not the least of which is that being on the water cools down solar cells, making them more productive. 

•

• Liberty University graduates return their diplomas because of LU President Jerry Falwell’s support for Trump. In a letter last week, several graduates said the university’s alignment with Trump has for them been a source of “shame and anger.” This heightened after Falwell’s saying he was “so proud” of Trump and his “bold, truthful” response to white supremacist violence in Charlottesville: 

Falwell appeared on “Fox & Friends” Monday morning to reiterate his support for the president.

“President Donald Trump does not have a racist bone in his body. I know him well,” Falwell said. “He loves all people. He’s worked so hard to help minorities in the inner cities. … He’s doing all the right things to help the people that are in need, the minorities.”

• German police seize thousands of tablets of the party drug ecstasy in the shape of Trump’s face.

• Calling his actions “despicable,” a Catholic priest has temporarily quit his post after revealing he was in the Ku Klux Klan year ago:

A Catholic priest in Arlington, Va., is temporarily stepping down after revealing he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and burned crosses more than 40 years ago before becoming a clergy member.

The Rev. William Aitcheson wrote an editorial that was published Monday in the Arlington Catholic Herald describing himself as “an impressionable young man” when he became a member of the hate group. He wrote that images from the deadly white supremacist and white nationalist rally in Charlottesville “brought back memories of a bleak period in my life that I would have preferred to forget.”

• California blows apart Trump claim that environmental regulation stifles economic growth:

The California economy is thriving, according to a new report released Monday — and that’s despite the state instituting relatively restrictive environmental rules.

According to the assessment, after the passage of California’s trademark — and controversial — 2006 cap-and-trade law, statewide per capita emissions fell by 12 percent. For every fossil fuel job in the state, California has 8.5 in solar and wind energy. (Compare that to the 2.5-to-1 ratio for the nation, overall.) Most notably, the report finds the state’s per-capita GDP grew by almost double the national average since cap-and-trade passed. In fact, the state is now the most energy-productive economy in the world — meaning it uses the least amount of energy to gain each dollar of GDP.

On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Still more to talk about on Steve Bannon’s “exit,” and what it means, if anything. And in advance of Trump’s next rally, we dive into the archives for more theories and thinking about the “origin story” of the so-called “alt-right” and their instant “celebs.”

YouTube | iTunes | LibSyn | Keep us on the air! Donate via Patreon or Square Cash

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692277

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692273

Excuse any typos—it’s hard to type while laughing this hard. Gizmodo has alerted us to the most hilarious and pathetic news of the day. Pro-Trump rallies have been canceled in 37 locations:

Pro-Trump rallies that were originally being planned for roughly 37 locations across the US have been canceled. The rallies, scheduled for September 9th, were being coordinated by ACT For America, a pro-Trump and anti-Muslim hate group best known for its “March Against Sharia” back in June. The group said it will instead hold online demonstrations.

ACT For America released a statement to Breitbart, America’s number 1 website for adult virgins, claiming that the cancellations were due to “the recent violence in America and in Europe.” ACT For America, which calls itself “the NRA of national security,” is now proclaiming Saturday, September 9th an online “Day of ACTion.” It’s not yet clear what the organization has planned, but it’s probably a safe bet that it will involve plenty of shitty memes.

The hate-driven groups have apparently realized they are far, far outnumbered by the sane, decent members of our society and they are retreating to their safe spaces online, where they can whip each other up in a safer environment. Here’s the sad, sad statement by the organizers:

ACT for America is deeply saddened that in today’s divisive climate, citizens cannot peacefully express their opinion without risk of physical harm from terror groups domestic and international.

In recent weeks, extremist and radical organizations in the United States and abroad have overrun peaceful events in order to advance their own agendas, and in many cases, violence has been the result. Given the security issues of organizing public events, the responsible decision is to deny this opportunity to Neo-Nazis, Antifa, the KKK, and ISIS inspired individuals and groups. ACT for America’s membership is patriotic citizens whose only goal is to celebrate America’s values and peacefully express their views regarding national security.

Perhaps organizers saw what happened in Boston and realized their army of bots and small basket of deplorables simply aren’t up to facing off with the resistance. 

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692273

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692293

When it comes to solving sensitive racial issues in our country, there's no more tried and true solution than invoking the "states' rights" rallying cry, in particular by southern supporters of discriminating against black Americans. Though he didn’t explicitly use the terms “states’ rights,” Mike Pence still clearly believes that philosophy is the wave of the future when it comes to racial issues in the 21st century, writes the AP.

Vice President Mike Pence says state and local authorities should make decisions about Confederate statues, and he calls himself “someone who believes in more monuments, not less monuments.”

As for the fate of Confederate statues at the U.S. Capitol, Pence says it’s up to states to pick the figures represented.

He tells “Fox & Friends” that “what we have to walk away from is a desire by some to erase parts of our history just in the name of some contemporary political cause.”

Definitely. Let's not let that passing fancy known as "racial justice" guide our actions. And by the way, no one is talking about trying to erase anything. What many people are proposing is moving the statues to museums where they can be put in proper context rather than simply glorifying soldiers who fought to advance the right of white Americans to enslave black Americans.

Pence may not have used the term "states' rights," but that's exactly what he's advocating for—it's a politician's ploy to get out of actually taking a moral stand on anything. The division of power between the states and our federal government has been a source of tension since our nation's founding. But here's a quick summation of how "states' rights"—a code word that is still invoked today—became a favorite cause of white southerners who opposed racial equity and the civil rights movement.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692293

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692282

House Speaker Paul Ryan says popular vote loser Donald Trump "messed up" by calling white supremacists "very fine people," but he's ready to move on to the stuff that matters, like tax cuts. He's not going to be supporting a move to censure Trump for cozying up to Nazis, because he has other stuff to do.

Ryan said censuring Trump would be “counterproductive.”

“If we descend this issue into some partisan hack-fest, into some bickering against each other and demean it down into some political food fight, what good does that do to unify this country?” Ryan said, adding that it would be the “worst thing we could do.”

Because having the U.S. Congress explicitly and officially condemn murderous racism would just be a "partisan hack-fest." Sure. But I guess Ryan does know all about being a partisan hack. Ryan did, however, finally move a little bit beyond his regular bland expression of concern about Trump's comments, saying "I do believe that he messed up in his comments on Tuesday when it sounded like a moral equivocation or at the very least moral ambiguity when we need extreme moral clarity."

But no worries, Trump fixed all that in the speech on Afghanistan he gave just before Ryan's town hall, says Ryan. The heavily scripted speech Trump read off of his teleprompter, with no ad-libs, "cleared that up. I think it was important that he did that tonight." That'll last all of 24 hours, if that. Trump's appearance in Phoenix Tuesday is practically designed bring on another Trumpian debacle of racism.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692282

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692269

Popular vote loser Donald Trump continues to splinter the Republican party with support for him emerging as the key early issue in Republican primaries. It's not just Trump policies, it's Trump himself and he's making it personal, taking an active role in attacking incumbents who he feels are too critical of him.

“In any state where Trump has an approval [rating] of 85 percent or better among GOP primary voters, it’s an effective weapon,” said Steven Law, president of Senate Leadership Fund, the Republican super PAC aligned with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, while warning every state and every race is different. Ahead of the first round of voting in Alabama’s special Senate election this month, the PAC slammed Rep. Mo Brooks’ over his criticism of Trump in 2016.

Brooks went on to finish a distant third in Tuesday’s primary, a warning to candidates on both sides of the old divide between establishment Republicans and right-wing rebels. For the National Republican Senatorial Committee and establishment Republicans, it illustrates how similar attacks could damage Heller and Flake, who are also facing pressure from Democrats gunning for their seats.

The most immediate worry is in Arizona, where Flake’s constant stream of criticism of Trump in a new book, on cable news and, most recently, in a New York Times op-ed has hurt his standing among the president’s supporters. Trump, who is holding a rally in Phoenix on Tuesday, tweeted in support of Flake’s primary challenger last week. “Great to see that Dr. Kelli Ward is running against Jeff Flake, who is WEAK on borders, crime and a non-factor in Senate,” Trump wrote. “He's toxic!”

Please give $1 to each of our Senate funds so that Republican senators know there'll be a price to pay for their votes to repeal health care.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692269

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692221

Follow Jen on Twitter at @JenSorensen

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1692221